Apple industrial design. A lot of people downgrade how important this is in selling Apple products but I think for a lot of people this tips the balance towards 'buy' in the buy/don't buy decision node. Especially if it's going in the living room which for a lot of people is the best furnished room in their home.

With the direction that TVs are headed (and the one Apple would likely take), there's nothing to design hardware-wise because it's nothing but screen.

Regarding Jobs' "cracked" comment, which AI seems to paste into every story these days, I wish he had made this comment in regards to content deals. I don't think anyone is worried about the interface this rumored TV will have; it's what the interface will have access to that worries me instead.

I think that Steve had "cracked" it...

Steve wanted to deliver the simplest possible interface to the TV -- But that is something that Apple is capable of doing with no sweat...

What Steve "cracked" was the means of delivering content and advertising to the TV with a simple and elegant UX.

Let's start at the ending, two examples...

1) It's SuperBowl Sunday, you are all siting around the BigTV in the "family" room, watching the game...

While watching the football game, an ad for pizza comes up.

You say to your Siri remote iPad: "Siri That looks good"

Siri: sends the menu from the pizza ad to your iPad (the TV continues to show the game)

You ask the others what they want, and by voice and/or touch you make your selections and Siri completes the transaction (payment, scheduled delivery, etc.).

2) Later, you remember that your wife perked up when an ad for a jewelry pendant appeared on the TV... Her birthday is in 2 weeks...

Out of your wife's earshot you say: "Siri yesterday I saw an ad for a diamond pendant on TV

"Siri sending the results to your iPad: "Here's a list of the Jewelry ads viewed in your home yesterday... They are sorted by type of jewelry"

Using Siri or Touch, you retrieve and play the various ads until you find the item you seek. As desired, you complete the transaction using Siri/Touch.

I am assuming that any transactions are handled at the Siri Store -- analogous to buying an app or a song.

What just happened there?

The TV showed/told you what to buy!

Siri bought them at your behest!

...and, in many cases, content == advertising == content

Does the above series of interactions and transactions (all logged and sumarizable) have any value to:
-- the viewer
-- the shopper
-- the buyer
-- the seller
-- the manufacturer
-- the advertiser
-- the ad agency
-- the ad creator
-- the content provider
-- the content creator
-- the content aggregator/broadcaster
-- the show planner/scheduler
-- the CableCo
-- the Pizza Guy

"Swift generally gets you to the right way much quicker." - auxio -

"The perfect [birth]day -- A little playtime, a good poop, and a long nap." - Tomato Greeting Cards -

50" is good news, hopefully 60 through 80 not far behind I'd like a 100" that 'rolls' up into a ceiling housing and drops down at the command to Siri.

I don't think a 50" Apple/Siri/iTunes driven flat screen TV would be a big seller, I mean where's the Apple differentiation? With the advances I've read about in flex displays, I'm more inclined to suppose the rumored Apple TV is really a radical breakthrough in displays - such as a 100" rollup - plus a breakthrough in Siri voice navigation.

Obviously Jane and Joe Average are still going to want cable, they want their TVs cheap cheap cheap, and they won't care that Apple's screen has a better colour reproduction than the average POS.

IMO an Apple branded TV with (maybe) an optical slot on the side like an iMac and no inputs other than wireless would be just fine. I know it's pretty much exactly what I want and need and I know I'm not alone. A lot of folks just want a slab to hang on the wall that "just works" and a huge number of people under 40 or so don't watch cable TV at all and don't have a giant wall of DVDs or BluRays like the over 50's tend to have.

Prof. Pea... I like ya, I really do. But sometimes you make me shake my head. Apple wouldn't be competing with the average TV. It'd be the high end TVs. Go take a Pioneer Elite Plasma and look at it. There is no way an Apple TV will look BETTER than that. In fact, if it were to come out- it wouldn't look as nice picture-wise or capability-wise. BUT, their key will be the integration of components.
Are over 40s the ones keeping MTV, VH1, or Real Housewives of XYZ County on the air? Nope. Thats the 15-30 year olds. They watch cable. Tons of it.

I dont understand why the Apple TV has to "cut the cord". Why? All I want is simplicity. When I put on a blu-ray, it changes to my blu-ray input (my samsung does this now w/ the samsung blu-ray player). But when I switch to u-verse, I have to click on my universal remote "tv, Input, push up twice, enter, Cable" to start watching it if I just watched a blu-ray. The same thing if I switch to apple tv, or whatever.

Why is an integrated Blu-Ray player, Apple TV, and a method to change inputs not good enough? Partner with a handful of ISPs like Verizon and Uverse, and sell a premium TV for a premium price. It won't be a ton of people that buy it nationally, and for those that don't buy it, have them buy the new Apple TV 3 that has 1080p streaming and a couple minor features.

You want to say "play coldplay" on your remote? You can do it on either and it plays. But if you have an Apple TV3, you have to have the tv remote, cable remote, dvd remote (or universal) AND the apple remote w/ microphone. If you have the Apple TV Set, you just have one remote. Sell the simplicity.

Some bozo just pulled this right out of his butt crack. It's easy to quote "anonymous" sources. If the information is bogus there's no price to pay is there. And USA Today is a bastion of quality journalism isn't it.

Nothing innovative here. Android TVs have been around for years.... slappy

"Swift generally gets you to the right way much quicker." - auxio -

"The perfect [birth]day -- A little playtime, a good poop, and a long nap." - Tomato Greeting Cards -

Originally Posted by digitalclips View Post
50" is good news, hopefully 60 through 80 not far behind I'd like a 100" that 'rolls' up into a ceiling housing and drops down at the command to Siri.

Quote:

Originally Posted by King of Beige

I don't think a 50" Apple/Siri/iTunes driven flat screen TV would be a big seller, I mean where's the Apple differentiation? With the advances I've read about in flex displays, I'm more inclined to suppose the rumored Apple TV is really a radical breakthrough in displays - such as a 100" rollup - plus a breakthrough in Siri voice navigation.

Ok, but if that's your situation then why opt for a $1,999 50" iTV as opposed to a $999 50" Panasonic Plasma with enough HDMI ports to add a $99 Apple TV?

If it's all in the user interface, and the content is still limited to what's available on iTunes (which you know it will be), then again why not just roll that new-and-improved interface into an upgraded Apple TV set-top box?

who says it's going to be $2000 for a 50"? unless it's one of the new OLED borderless TV's no one is going to buy it at that price

You want to say "play coldplay" on your remote? You can do it on either and it plays. But if you have an Apple TV3, you have to have the tv remote, cable remote, dvd remote (or universal) AND the apple remote w/ microphone. If you have the Apple TV Set, you just have one remote. Sell the simplicity.

I bought one of these for $30 not long ago. It allows for macros and all sorts of customization:

4) I wish AI would hire there own graphics editor. Besides not liking to see the same image over-and-over I think it would help the site if they could be the go-to site for finding renderings based on rumours. I think it could get then a lot more page hits.

imagine a 50" amoled TV

but imo its going to be a LED TV since pretty much all Apple devices are already using LED. And price does matter. LED means slim design at low price ATM.

And since there are probably FIVE people who are allowed in Jony's den, we can easily check the recent Apple firings to see if this is a real leak.

Well the number might be more like 10-20 but you are correct that there aren't many folks and none of them are likely to tell.

Also, just because it is in his studio doesn't make it a real product. I bet he's got tons of rejected prototypes in there because where else is there to put them. Plus he can learn from the mistakes. He's probably got a 7 inch iPad sitting right next to it

There is absolutely no reason for Apple to enter the over-crowded, low-margin big-screen tv business unless they also manage to take control of the content away from the cable companies.

They could still make money on Apps and VOD. Since Apple cannot deliver live feeds on there own I don't think they will enter live TV unless they partner with cable or sat or AT&T. Live feed is nice little mess with having to deal with both content providers and the FCC.

And they need a presence in the living room, even with no margins to promote there high margins idevices. If all TV's are android, it won't look good for Apple and people will move even more to Android over time to have a complete set of integrated devices. Dumping TV'S with no margins is better than nothing in the long run. With Apple income from is other markets it could kill some major players in the TV market in a race to the bottom, gain market shares and THEN start to make money. If they don't license iOS to TV makers they will have no choice to go with a low margin strategy or at least have a low cost model.

I am pretty confident Apple will surprise us again with some clever moves when they enter the TV market. The last thing I expect is a ATV2 inside a TV set at a high price. That has fail all over it.

And as Apple fans we are all paying premiums for our Apple hardware here. I mean unless you own AAPL stocks, you are paying too much, high margins does means the consumer is paying more than it should. Would be nice to have a cookie at least with one device.

That's part of the problem with this whole Apple HDTV issue. I want Apple to connect every room that has a TV, not just the living room. That means I want the bedrooms, guest rooms, den, living room, and even the master bathroom to all an AppleTV that can switch content to my last saved point as I leave one room and enter another. I won't have a 50" TV in all rooms because it doesn't make sense.

The only way to do this is to offer an AppleTV appliance that connects to any all devices with an HDMI connection. They would be remiss to ignore the rest of the house when they can finally unify the entire system the way DirectTV is with the Whole Home DVR service.

The ultimate goal must be user centric rather than device centric. My program should follow me around from device to device provided my destination device isn't already in use by another user. However, there are many caveats.

Sound travels between rooms so having different content in adjacent spaces can negatively impact all users. It can be even more annoying if two users are viewing the same content, but out of synchronization with each other.

For live events any lack of synchronization between rooms is a big negative.

If multiple users are sharing an output device and one or more decide to switch rooms there need to be options for pausing individual streams or simply directing them to different output devices. It gets even worse if a user who paused his/her stream later winds up sharing an output device with another user who may or may not have paused his/hers. Somebody is going to lose content or be knocked back into the past. The ability to fast forward content on a particular device could reduce content loss, but would have its own side effects.

All devices would need to be able to talk to each other and to all applicable content sources, but I cannot see anyone opting to buy an Apple branded television for every room of their home. Some sort of add-on box like the current Apple TV would have to remain an option.

I keep thinking how awesome an Apple TV with Siri would be, and then I'm reminded of the voice-activated TV on 30 Rock. It's the one where if anybody in the room says "crap" the TV immediately starts playing an episode of Keeping up with the Kardashians.

But I hope they also incorporate the same ideas and tech into an upgraded AppleTV box, because I already have a beautiful, functional, huge television. I'm not looking for another one, and I suspect a lot of people are in the same condition.

Exactly. and I think this is why the STB is going no where. Even if a full set is created.

But I also suspect that the full set won't be a tv set after all. It will be a dummy screen that has the proper inputs etc to work with the Apple TV, computer, your tivo etc. People have been yelling about the need for bigger displays. A dummy avoids the patents related to the tv antennas and meets that latter groups requests

50" is already passé in the market. 2012 will bring 60" as the more desired size. Since this is all rumor, why would anyone even take this seriously? Apple cannot succeed in this market. This market is owned by the likes of Samsung, LG, SONY and more. It would be a foolish waste of resources for Apple to dive into a market that is ruled by cut throat margins. Unless Apple is happy with their typical method of operations. That's is price it twice as much and be content with a minuscule market share.

Regarding Jobs' "cracked" comment, which AI seems to paste into every story these days, I wish he had made this comment in regards to content deals. I don't think anyone is worried about the interface this rumored TV will have; it's what the interface will have access to that worries me instead.

Maybe that's what Jobs meant (after all, he was only too aware of the intransigent contents brokers). Or maybe he meant something else. Regardless, we cannot take Isaacson's word for it. After reading the bio, it became clear to me that Isaacson possessed in-depth knowledge of neither the technology nor the subject himself. It is also a poorly edited book, given the publisher. Any revelation in the book must be assessed with that in mind.

Only thing I want to believe about this rumor is the 50" part seeing as nearly every 50" panel produced these days is a plasma and plasma TV's are vastly superior to LED's in terms of picture quality still. High end plasmas and projectors are all I buy, but I'd like to not make the compromise when an Apple HDTV comes out if I don't have to.

Ok, but if that's your situation then why opt for a $1,999 50" iTV as opposed to a $999 50" Panasonic Plasma with enough HDMI ports to add a $99 Apple TV?

If it's all in the user interface, and the content is still limited to what's available on iTunes (which you know it will be), then again why not just roll that new-and-improved interface into an upgraded Apple TV set-top box?

I have taken many Panasonic plasma's and paired them only with Apple TV's. The Apple TV is on those hokey "green" surge protectors and only turns on when the TV turns on. So when I turn on the Panny, I see a nice little Apple logo first thing. It's like having an Apple HDTV. It serves all my purposes sans live sports. And as said, I prefer plasma any day of the week over any LED. I have all of my TV's calibrated and they end up looking outstanding and far more natural than any LED I've seen. You still can't beat the black levels, color and smooth motion of a plasma, and nowadays they use a lot less power and are much thinner as well. Burn in isn't really an issue anymore either unless they're straight up abused.

But anyways, I hope no matter what they do with an actual HDTV, they continue to support the Apple TV box as I highly doubt Apple will put out a projector for my home theater. I'm fine with 42" in the bedrooms and offices, and 50" is more than adequate for a family room.

1) I wouldn't be surprised if Ives has several Apple prototypes and one-off designs he helped create for personal use, but that doesn't mean these will come to market.

They must have some kind of policy on handling of old prototypes. They probably have many of them given prototyping phases. It's just not possible to gauge everything perfectly before seeing a physical model.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SolipsismX

That's part of the problem with this whole Apple HDTV issue. I want Apple to connect every room that has a TV, not just the living room. That means I want the bedrooms, guest rooms, den, living room, and even the master bathroom to all an AppleTV that can switch content to my last saved point as I leave one room and enter another. I won't have a 50" TV in all rooms because it doesn't make sense.

The only way to do this is to offer an AppleTV appliance that connects to any all devices with an HDMI connection. They would be remiss to ignore the rest of the house when they can finally unify the entire system the way DirectTV is with the Whole Home DVR service.

Owning that many televisions would drive me crazy. I don't like to watch too much of it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mstone

It would be cool if it had 4K resolution. Then you really could use it as a computer monitor.

I'm not sure how many companies actually make panels in such a resolution. Everything I've read aside from rumors on this site would suggest that those are still a few years away.

Quote:

Originally Posted by gcom006

Wow, built in wifi? Who would've thunk it???

Only thing I want to believe about this rumor is the 50" part seeing as nearly every 50" panel produced these days is a plasma and plasma TV's are vastly superior to LED's in terms of picture quality still. High end plasmas and projectors are all I buy, but I'd like to not make the compromise when an Apple HDTV comes out if I don't have to.

I'm pretty sure LED became big for cost reasons and the ability to make slender displays. I recall hearing that they provided superior backlight uniformity, so that could be another reason, as uniformity has always been a significant issue with LCD displays.

What I think is being missed is that the Apple TV is really a companion to what really matters to Apple and that's becoming a source of TV content for the majority. Apple is already providing TV content after a fashion but it is far too expensive to buy programming rather than stream it. Also, live feeds for stuff like news and sports is not really part of the mix.

So what I think Apple is working on is to become a one-stop provider of TV content that will rival traditional services like cable and satellite. This content will be accessible through Apple TV, Macs, the Touch, the iPhone, the iPad, and PCs, i.e. any device running iTunes. It has to be this way because if Apple tried to secure broadcast rights and could only deliver the segment of the public who has purchased one of Apple's soon-to-be-released TVs, broadcasters would definitely buy in. The installed base would be zero when the product came to market and it's kind of a chicken-and-egg sort of scenario.

As such, what I think is that Apple will get into the TV content business in a big way and will offer a line of TVs that provide the best way to take in that content, yet not the only way. My hope is that Apple will introduce an LCD that feature IPS (in-plane switching) panels, which offer far superior performance off-axis compared to the typical LCD panels found in most consumer-grade sets. Combine that with a decent grade of LED backlighting and the result should be a rather attractive TV that lacks the weaknesses most common is lesser LCDs.

By the way, to get an idea of what the cost could be like, consider that such technology is employed in the Apple monitor available today. That monitor is a 27-inch unit that lists in the US for $999. If one were to include the hardware to make it a full-bore TV, rather than just a monitor, I think Apple could deliver such a product for maybe $1,249. I'm guessing that Apple's TVs would check in at a range of something like $1,599 to just above $2,000 and while those TVs at those prices would not sell in great volume, Apple's real focus would be on what content could be offered via iTunes with inroads in the TV hardware market considered more of a bonus. The volume business would come in moving a lot more Apple TV devices so that customers could get the full Apple experience using their existing sets or take in their TV via alternate devices like laptops, tablets and smartphones. Maybe a little of both.

By the way, I forgot to factor in the fact that the resolution of the Apple display is far greater than that of the typical 1080p monitor. Perhaps the cost of the Apple TV could be lower than I'm calculating. The Apple monitor is, after all a 1440p monitor and for TV purposes, 1080p would be enough.

Just sandwich it between two sheets of iPhone-like glass laminated to either side surrounded by an iPhone 4-like metal band with just enough bezel for the camera. When it displays a full image, it won't be transparent and you won't see it from the back as it would have the Smart cover on it. In iPad mode, the back of the screen would be the main shell.

A clear TV would actually be quite good as it would give the impression that the TV doesn't take up much space unlike a 50" black square. Shame that Samsung makes these though as it means more money for the plagiarists.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Santoanderson

I keep thinking how awesome an Apple TV with Siri would be, and then I'm reminded of the voice-activated TV on 30 Rock. It's the one where if anybody in the room says "crap" the TV immediately starts playing an episode of Keeping up with the Kardashians.

They could put a Siri button on the remote though or just hold menu or something and the mic would be on the remote too. They'd have to really, you don't want to be screaming out that you want the adult channel on when everyone else is in their bed, or worse Dancing with the Stars. With a mic on the remote, you can whisper it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by gcom006

nearly every 50" panel produced these days is a plasma and plasma TV's are vastly superior to LED's in terms of picture quality still

They both look pretty good to me in terms of the picture quality, OLED is quite well known for over-saturating colours but the black levels are great. OLED is also a good bit thinner:

When I see TVs like that, that's where I have a problem thinking Apple would enter this market. The phone market was obvious really but how does Apple top a 3mm thick OLED display? The content deals sure but then they don't need to make a TV for this.